Louis came over to Villon and whispered in
his ear:
"Here comes your lady. I think your love-fruit is ripe and you need
not stand on tip-toe to pick it."
Villon answered him with burning eyes:
"Sire, I believe I have won the rose of the world."
Louis chuckled like an enraptured raven.
"The Count of Montcorbier is luckier than Fran?ois Villon. But the
lady has a high mind and a fierce spirit. She may not relish the
deception, pardon the cheat his lie!"
Something in the king's words struck upon Villon's fiery hopes like
a stream of ice-cold water and seemed to quench them. He was like a
man who, long playing at blind-man's-buff, suddenly has the bandage
plucked from his eyes and stands dazzled and blinking in the
sunlight. After all, he was not the Count of Montcorbier; after all,
he was not the Grand Constable of France; after all, he was only a
masquerading beggar who had won the heart of a lady under false
colours; who had triumphed by flying a false flag. In all those
seven splendid days this simple thought had never come to him. His
whole soul had been so taken captive by the fascination of the part
he had been permitted to play that he forgot he was playing a part,
and allowed his fancy to believe that a week-long dream would endure
forever.
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